A Shadow on the Pattern
by halfmyheart
Summary: Magnus had said the wrong thing, as usual, and it was going to cost him dearly, but his day from hell was just the beginning. He could never had predicted that he would end up in such a mess, but when all was said and done it was not just his life hanging in the balance.
1. Chapter 1: The Road to Hell

**Title:** A Shadow on the Pattern

**Author:** halfmyheart

**Rating:** T

**Pairings:** None

**Summary:** Magnus had said the wrong thing, as usual, and it was going to cost him dearly, but his day from hell was just the beginning. He could never had predicted that he would end up in such a mess, but when all was said and done it was not just his life hanging in the balance.

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of Left Bank Pictures, Yellow Bird, and the BBC. This form of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

**Feedback:** Constructive criticism is always welcomed. Please read and review.

**Status:** 1/?

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Magnus knew by the expression on Kurt's face that he was in for yet another undeserved tongue lashing, the second in as many hours. He exhaled sharply and braced himself for the storm as Kurt stalked over to his desk.

"Magnus! Where are those files I told you to bring up from the archives? I asked for them three hours ago. What have you been doing all morning?"

Slogging through paperwork, mostly, beyond that Magnus wasn't entirely sure. Kurt had not told him exactly what he was looking for, only that the cold case files on the thirty year old Ahlström murders were to be pulled from the archives. However, the files that Kurt wanted were not housed in the archives but in the bowels of the department, old as sin and rat infested, and Magnus had not wanted to touch them with a ten foot pole.

"There wasn't much left of them," he admitted, tapping his pencil on the edge of the desk as he spoke. "The rats must have used most of the paper for nesting purposes some years ago. There was little discernable writing left, just snippets and such."

Kurt shot him a scathing glare and Magnus knew he had said the wrong thing. As usual.

"Haul your ass down there and retrieve those files, Magnus. They could very well play a pivotal role in this ongoing investigation."

Magnus huffed at the older man and decided to push his luck one step farther. He dropped the pencil and squared his shoulders doggedly. "I don't see how the Ahlström murders have anything to do with the recent Hjalmarsson murders. They occurred over thirty years ago. Any connection you might find will be a tenuous connection at best and I…"

Kurt leaned forward, his eyes blazing with anger. "Just do it, Magnus, or _I_…"

Luckily, the phone rang at that particular moment, cutting across Kurt's haranguing and, seeing as how Magnus was the only person in the office who knew how to answer a phone, he shot forward in his chair and snatched the receiver to his ear.

"Ystad Police, Martinsson. Yes. Mmmhmm. Of course. Wait, let me write that down. Yes. Yes. Thank you."

Magnus gentle replaced the receiver in the cradle and pretended to be absorbed in his notepad hoping that Kurt would go away.

He heard rather than saw Kurt heave a longsuffering sigh, "Get the bloody files, Magnus. Now. And when you are through with that have a look at my computer, the bloody thing isn't working."

Magnus looked up from glaring at his notepad to watch Kurt stalk back toward his office. He glanced at his watch. He had at least an hour before he could knock off for lunch. The phone rang again and no one else seemed to care enough to answer it. Frustrated beyond belief, he reached for it knowing that it was going to be an incredibly long day.

"Martinsson."

Fifteen minutes later, Magnus found himself tramping through the dusty, poorly lit basement of the department. The flashlight in his hand bounced over innumerable piles of neatly stacked cardboard boxes, some of them dating as far back as the 1950's. Normally, all of the evidence collected at crime scenes was stored in a cold room to preserve any DNA evidence, but many of the older cold case files in which there was no DNA to speak of were stored down in the basement with the rats.

"Useless," he mumbled to himself.

Sometimes he felt like Wallander's ass monkey. _Go get this, go get that, find those files, answer the phone, slog through that database for three stupid letters._ Anytime he tried to do any real police work with that man around, it always turned into a disaster. He always got harnessed with all the jobs no one else wanted to do. It might have something to do with his youth or it might have something to do with the fact that Magnus had the unfortunate proclivity for saying exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time which usually ended with a chewing out from Kurt that made Magnus want to fade into the walls or, at the very least, fall off the face of the earth. When Kurt was on the warpath it was best to just stand aside and let him blow by, but Magnus found it difficult not to say what was on his mind. He just needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut. Maybe stitches, or super glue, either way Magnus knew his snarky attitude was the number one cause of most of the friction between him and the older detective. Without it, the world would turn so much easier for both men. He just couldn't bring himself to stop being himself for the sake of getting along with Kurt.

Magnus came to halt near the back corner of the basement. The dusty yellow beam from his flashlight illuminated the cardboard box containing Kurt's precious evidence which Magnus had rifled through with great caution earlier. The last thing he wanted was for an errant rat to bit his fingers off.

He placed the small flashlight into his mouth in order to have the free use of both of his hands. He inhaled slowly through his nose, disgusted by the scent of dirt and decay that surrounded him, and gingerly picked up the box. A small cloud of dust billowed up and into his face and Magnus had to resist the urge to sneeze.

He despised being Wallander's bloody errand boy, and, try as he might, he could not see the connection between this old unsolved case and their current case. It seemed like a waste of time digging around in the nethers of the archives when he could be out doing some actual police work.

As he trekked back upstairs, Magnus ran into Anne-Britt in the hallway.

"What have you got there, Magnus?" She asked, eyeing the flimsy box skeptically.

"Files of the Ahlström murders for Kurt. Or, what's left of them anyway."

"The Ahlström murders? What does he want with those?"

Magnus shrugged, "who knows. He seems to think there is some sort of connection but he wasn't up for sharing. You know Wallander, he plays things pretty close to the vest sometimes."

Anne-Britt stared at the box for a moment, a thoughtful expression spreading across her features, "do you really think there is anything useful in that box. I mean, say there is a connection that we aren't seeing, those files are half eaten and incomplete now, how does Kurt expect to put the pieces together when some of them are missing and more than thirty years old?"

Magnus had wondered that himself but Kurt had not given voice to that particular set of concerns. He had already been forced to endure two rather scathing tongue lashing today, he wasn't particularly keen on being subjected to a third. "You should ask him that. Now, if you'll excuse me, Kurt is waiting for me."

Anne-Britt nodded and stepped aside to let him pass. The door to Kurt's office was partially open so Magnus pushed it the rest of the way with his foot.

"The files you asked for," he announced, dropping the box none to gently on the edge of Kurt's desk. "Will that be all?"

"No," said Kurt, "I have to go out of town. There's been another murder and I'm meeting Nyberg there. You sort through those files and look for any commonality between the Ahlström murders and the Hjalmarsson murders. I want anything, Magnus, and I don't care how trivial or insignificant it seems. These two cases are linked; I can feel it, now I just need to prove it."

Magnus started to protest, but Kurt was already heading for the door, car keys in hand. "I don't care of it takes you all day and half the night, get me something I can use." And then he was gone and Magnus was left standing in his empty office with an incredulous scowl on his face.

"Unbelievable," he muttered to himself as he hauled the box off the Kurt's desk and out to his own.

His watch said that it was twelve forty five, far too late to take his lunch break now. Magnus sat down heavily in his chair and fingered the edge of the evidence box. He was contemplating his next move when the phone rang. Once, twice, three times and no one else answered it. He groaned in frustrating but reached for the receiver.

"Martinsson," he said with a sigh.

-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-

Magnus's stomach rumbled in protest and his eyes burned from staring at the computer screen for the last several hours. He had made little headway in the Hjalmarsson/Ahlström files, but he had found something very interesting on the crime database. Wallander was on his way back to the station, presumably for Magnus to brief him on what he had found, but he was still ten minutes out of Ystad.

Tired, Magnus raked a hand through his hair and grabbed his empty coffee cup. The small canteen on the other side of the office was nearly empty this time of night, but he managed to find a small pack of crackers and a left over donut from the morning briefing. Magnus was not a fan of raspberry but he was hungry enough to eat anything that was not stale or sporting a colony of mold.

Just as he was about to refill his coffee cup, his mobile chirped in his pocket.

"Yeah?"

"Magnus, it's Kurt. I'm here. Meet me outside. Bring your computer and your coat."

"Are we going somewhere," he asked through a yawn.

"Yes."

The line went dead and Magnus stared at the raspberry donut with sad, hungry eyes, wavering on whether or not to take it with him. Was it polite to eat in front of Kurt if he had nothing to offer him, too? Magnus decided that he did not care and snatched it out of the box. He put it in his mouth, biting down on the edge to keep it from falling, and grabbed his laptop and coat from his desk.

Wallander was double parked outside the building, the engine running and an annoyed expression on his face when Magnus strode outside. Kurt looked like he hadn't slept in years and his beard was getting out of control. Magnus choose not to comment as he folded himself into the passenger side, gnawing on the donut.

"Did you bring me one," asked Kurt.

"Umm," said Magnus around a mouthful of raspberry filling.

"Never mind," snapped the older detective, shifting into drive and stomping on the gas.

Magnus grabbed the laptop to keep it from toppling into the floor as Kurt rounded the corner and accelerated toward the edge of town. "Where are we going?"

Kurt ignored him, "tell me what you found out on the crime database."

Magnus cleared his throat and brushed donut crumbs off the front of his shirt. "Well, I went through what was left of the Ahlström files like you asked me to, but I couldn't find a connection with the Hjalmarssons until I logged onto the crime database. It turns out that these two cases have some eerie similarities. According to the database, the Ahlström's, Ulf and Britta, had a young son named Niklas. He was ten years old when his parents were murdered."

"Have you been able to find a current residence for this Niklas Ahlström?" Asked Kurt, once again plowing across what Magnus was saying without allowing him to finish.

"No," Magnus responded, "that's just it though. Nicklas was missing at the time of his parent's murders and no one has seen or heard from his since."

"Was a missing person's report filed by the parent's before they died?"

"No."

"Was there a report filed by other family members after their deaths?"

"No."

"What does this have to do with the Hjalmarsson's?"

"Well, the Hjalmarsson's also had a ten year old son, Oskar, but he was found dead at the scene."

"Yes, I know, I was there," said Kurt impatiently. "What does any of this have to do with the crime database?"

Magnus smiled ruefully. "I think you were right about the two cases being connected. I can't actually give you a link beyond manner of death, but I can tell you that, while I was browsing around the database, I came across another unsolved murder from ten years ago in Gothenberg. The Lundqvist's. Father, mother, ten year old son, all dead. The parents were killed downstairs and the boy was found upstairs, posed just like Oskar Hjalmarsson." Magnus hesitated, glancing at Kurt's profile to gauge his reaction. "I think all three of these cases are connected and I think…I think we may be dealing with a serial here."

Kurt was silent for some time, brooding over the news no doubt. "Beyond manner of death and MO, what are the connections between these three families? Did they know one another, do business with one another?"

Magnus shrugged. "I don't know that there is a connection between the families other than the killer. Serial killers are pretty random after all."

"So the connection is the killer?"

"Sure, but the Ahlström's little boy was missing, not murdered. If there is a pattern, their murders don't really fit it, do they?"

"Maybe we just never found the boy. Maybe the killer's style evolved. And that is all circumstantial evidence at best; we don't know that it is a serial for sure."

"Where are we going, Kurt," Magnus asked all of a sudden.

"Back to the Hjalmarsson's house. I think we might have missed something."

"Like what?"

Kurt shook his head in irritation. "I – I don't know. A clue."

"Sure," said Magnus, biting his lip, "but that is two hours from here and I haven't eaten anything since breakfast this morning." He glanced at his watch. "It's almost nine thirty and I'm starving."

Kurt said nothing but continued to drive. Magnus thought Kurt was ignoring him until they pulled into the parking lot of a small deli on the outskirts of Ystad.

"I have to make a phone call," he said, handing Magnus a handful of change. "Get me a ham sandwich and a bottle of water."

'Have to make a phone call' was Kurt's way of telling Magnus to get lost, and the younger detective wasted no time getting out of the car. By the time he had ordered their sandwiches and made it back to the car, Kurt was off the phone and he was even more agitated than usual. He was staring out the windshield, tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

"One ham sandwich," announced Magnus, shifting his laptop out of the seat and climbing back into the car.

Kurt took it without fanfare and threw the blue Volvo into reverse. They jerked around and out of the parking lot fast enough to give Magnus whiplash.

"Okay, then," mumbled Magnus, taking a bite of his own sandwich. It was divine but judging by the look on Kurt's face, he was not going to get to enjoy it.

"Tell me more about what you found on the database."

After exhausting all possible avenues of conversation regarding the information Magnus had obtained, the two detectives lapsed into a comfortable silence. Magnus stared out the window as the world passed them by in a blur of surreal landscape. He had always loved Sweden in the summertime, especially the countryside. There were great swathes of pine wood trees along the coast and vast fields of rape sweeping beyond the horizon and into the oblivion of the unknown as the road wound leisurely toward their destination. It was a long, lonely road from Ystad to the small town of Kivik and the white nights of summer made it seem even longer.

Magnus's mind was not on the case or the man sitting beside him as they snaked through the countryside. It was a million miles away, lost in a myriad of memories from his first days on the Ystad police force. As the youngest member of the team, Magnus had always been shunted toward the more trivial tasks of the day to day machinations of the station. Even though he had been a part of the team for several years now, Kurt still foisted mundane chores upon him and refused to allow him to take part in notifying family members of decedents. It was no secret that Kurt thought him rather impulsive and tactless, but Magnus knew that he was more than capable of handling all of the responsibilities of his job, he just wished Kurt would stop being so hard on him all the time.

Thinking of the older man, Magnus peeked toward the driver's seat. Kurt was slumped forward, looking ragged and exhausted. His pale features were highlighted by his rough beard and, had Magnus not know better, he would have guess that Kurt was ill. He knew that the Kurt had a medical condition called HONK, something Magnus found absolutely hilarious but wisely kept his mouth shut about for once, and he wondered if Kurt was taking the doctor's orders to heart. It wasn't that Magnus was particularly keen on Kurt's health, but he liked the older man despite his temper, and did not wish him any ill will. If Magnus was being honest with himself, he looked to Kurt as a sort of role model for the type of police officer he wanted to be someday. Not depressed, overweight, and far too emotionally involved, but dogged, decisive, and the best at his job.

"What are you staring at, Magnus?" Asked Kurt suddenly, breaking through Magnus's musings.

"Umm, well, I was thinking about the case," he said, stumbling through the lie.

Kurt nodded absently. "Yeah, it's been bothering me, too."

"Sure," replied Magnus, "sure."

They turned off the main road onto a small gravel driveway, and Magnus sat up straighter in his seat. "This is it, then? The house?"

"Yes," Kurt said, his voice as drawn and dark as the expression on his face. Magnus could not tell what he was thinking, but his sudden alertness caused an icy feeling to settle into the pit of Magnus's stomach.

"Something is wrong," whispered Kurt as he slammed the car into park and got out.

Magnus followed, one hand already pulling his gun from its holster on his hip. "What it is," he whispered.

"Someone has been here. The door is slightly ajar."

Kurt nodded for Magnus to check around the back, and Magnus took off toward the house, bent low and moving as soundlessly as possible in the dry summer grass. He pressed his back flat against the stone wall, just below the window. Cautiously, he peeked through the dirty glass panes. Then he ducked down and moved on toward the next window. As he approached the corner of the house, he raised his gun and swept around the hedges, ready to shoot anything that moved.

At the same moment, Kurt appeared around the other side. A strange tingling sensation, like tiny bolts of electricity, raced up and down Magnus's spine and his heart was hammering away in his chest as the adrenaline of the moment got the best of him.

He and Kurt approached the backdoor in tandem and Magnus hung back, his gun poised and steady, as Kurt reached for the doorknob and flung the door wide open.

Nothing happen.

Magnus had been expecting something, anything, but there was nothing but silence and dead air. Magnus entered slowly, creeping along in Kurt's footsteps, every nerve in his body humming with alertness. His eyes scanned everything for any sign of danger and his ears strained for the faintest sound of scuffing feet or whispered movement around every corner and every doorway.

He crept cautiously up the staircase, testing each step for creaking noises before placing his full weight on it and moving forward.

The pictures on the wall showed a happy, smiling family. There were numerous photos of a young boy with close cropped dark hair whom Mangus recognized as Oskar from the crime scene pictures he had reviewed at the station. He felt a pang of sadness wrap around his heart and squeeze, but he brushed it aside. Getting emotionally involved in a case was a bad idea.

As he neared the top of the staircase, Magnus heard a faint clicking noise that he instantly recognized as the tapping of keys on keyboard. Suddenly, the noise ceased, replaced with an emptiness that settled heavily in Magnus's stomach. He tried to steel himself for the inevitable confrontation but everything happened so fast that he barely saw it coming.

One minute he was alone on top of the staircase, one foot on the landing, one still on the stairs, his gun aimed toward the open door, and the next he was falling backwards, arms reaching out to slow his decent down the stairs, to break his fall and protect his head. He had managed to fire off one round, a bullet that went far and wide of its intended target, before the hooded figure slammed into him, full force, and sent him flailing back down the staircase.

As his head slammed into the hard wooden floor on the landing of the ground floor, he heard Kurt yelling, swearing, and a gun firing in the distance. Then everything went sideways, the world frayed and melted around the edges before it closed in around him, pulling him down into the cold, dark oblivion of unconsciousness.

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	2. Chapter 2: A Twist of Fate

Magnus was disoriented and lightheaded when he finally opened his eyes. It took a moment for his vision to fully clear and for his eyes to focus on anything beyond the dark spots in his vision. His swore he could hear bells ringing, but it was only the high pitched ringing in his ears that echoed shrilly in his mind.

Kurt was hovering over him with a worried expression on his face. Worry was an emotion that often creased the older man's visage, but it was not often directed at Magnus, and it caught the younger detective off guard.

"What happened?" He asked slowly, trying to remember how he had ended up in a painful heap at the bottom of the staircase.

"What were you thinking, Magnus?" Hissed Kurt, his worry quickly replaced with anger, furious once he realized Magnus was not dead. "What were you thinking! Didn't you learn how to properly clear a room at the Academy?"

"I'm fine," Magnus mumbled darkly. "Thanks for asking."

Kurt sighed and scrubbed at his face with his hands, a gesture colored with frustration that boded ill for Martinsson. He was sure Wallander was going to vilify him for his error, but the other detective merely shook his head. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?"

Magnus took a moment to mentally examine all of the aches and pains he felt throughout his body. Nothing appeared to be broken, his ribs and his back ached and he knew he was going to be extremely sore in the morning. His head was pounded with a frightening intensity and he briefly wondered if he had a concussion. It would be a miracle after a fall like that if he didn't, but the true miracle was that he didn't break his neck. There was a nasty gash on his forehead from where he had banged into the steps during his rapid descent - it would probably require a few stitches at some point - and there was a cut on the palm of his right hand from where he had snatched at the picture frames on the wall in his frantic search for solid purchase to stop his fall.

"I think I'm alright," he said at last, raising his uninjured hand to the cut on his forehead to try to quell the bleeding. He quickly discovered that it was impossible to stop the flow of blood from that wound. Giving up, he reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve a handkerchief which he used to wrap around the bloody laceration on his hand instead.

Kurt eyed him skeptically.

"My head hurts," he admitted, knowing the other man would not be happy until he knew he was in pain.

"Yeah, well, you're bleeding all over the damn place and you probably have a concussion," replied Kurt. "We should get you to the hospital and have you looked at."

"No," protested Magnus, using the railing to support himself as he climbed gingerly to his feet in full protest of his entire body. He tightened his grip on the polished wood of the banister as a wave of nausea passed over him, and he began to suspect that his initial assessment about not having any broken bones had been wrong. He inhaled slowly, positive that he had at least one cracked rib, but he hide the sharp gasp of pain with a quick cough. "I think I'm okay," he lied. "Really. There's nothing they can do about concussions anyway." He looked around the entryway feeling marginally guilty about the gaffe that had led to this whole sodding situation. "Did the guy get away?"

Kurt shook his head, eyes going hard and sad again. If he caught the little white lie, he chose not to comment. "Yeah. Yeah, he got away. Did you see his face?"

"No." Magnus had the surprising decency to look slightly abased but he did not let the moment languish. He turned to look up the stairs behind him with purpose, the wheels in his mind spinning fast and faster, playing catch up after being rattled.

Something clicked into place. "The laptop."

"What?"

"He was on the laptop when we came in. I have to get it. Maybe I can find out what he was doing."

Without waiting for the other man to respond, Magnus loped slowly up the stairs, his injured hand clutching painfully at his ribs, the other sliding along the railing for support. He gently stooped to retrieve his gun from the floor near the open door where he had dropped it during the brief scuffle and holstered it before stepping into the room.

It was a small, quaint bedroom with pink floral wallpaper and enough lace to kill a Victorian lady. There were rows and rows of porcelain dolls lining the shelves and dressers, their frozen, dead eyes staring at him, watching him, as he crossed to the computer desk underneath the lace covered window. He pulled the swivel chair to him and sat down with a shudder at the thought of sleeping in a room like this one. The dolls alone were enough to send cold shivers of unease down his spine.

The small black laptop was still open on the desk, the screen blank. Magnus taped a finger on the keyboard and the display lit up to reveal a welcome screen that was password protected. He thought about it for two seconds before typing in the name "Oskar". People were so predictable and the Hjalmarssons were no exception. The welcome screen disappeared and he found himself staring at the desktop. A picture of the Hjalmarsson's son, very much alive and exuding happiness under a bright, sunny sky, stared back at him and Magnus felt ice crackle down his spine and for a moment he couldn't do anything but stare blankly at the boy's smiling face.

He hesitated and awkwardly clicked on the browser icon with his left hand and headed straight for the history cache. Several websites had been accessed since the Hjalmarsson's murders, but none of them were particularly interesting or incriminatory. Except one.

"Kurt!"

The other detective shuffled into the room behind him with a first aid kit from the car in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

"What is it now, Magnus?" Kurt stopped dead in the doorway, a vexed expression that hinted at trouble clouded his face. "Did you dust for prints before you blooded up that desktop? Did you even think about the evidence you were destroying when you started tapping away on the keyboard?"

Magnus looked down at his right hand to find a pool of blood collecting near the laptop and he quickly snatched his hand away. He felt his ears burn red but he refused to be bullied, even if it was justifiable.

"We may have bigger problems than me potentially destroying evidence," he replied breathlessly.

"What? What are you talking about?"

He pointed toward the screen. "Several internet sites have been accessed from this laptop within the last two days. None of them really caught my attention: a couple of news sites, Facebook, a few political sites, Google earth, a porn site or two…"

"Get to the point," growled Kurt.

He nodded, "then I spotted this site." He opened the link and sat back with an expectant expression on his face. "Well?"

"Is – is that what I think it is?"

"Schematics for making a bomb. A rather big one by the looks of it."

Magnus clicked around on the laptop for a few more minutes but his eyes began to burn and the pounding in his head intensified tenfold. He closed the lid and took the first aid kit from Kurt who was rummaging around in the room looking for signs that anything else had been disturbed or tampered with.

The small bathroom adjacent to the bedroom was decorated in hues of pale blue and soft sea foam greens. It was not as abusive to the eyes as the pink and Magnus found that his headache was beginning to abate slightly. He opened the first aid kit and took out several bandages. The gash on his forehead was tender to the touch and burned when he smeared antiseptic cream on it. There were small, painful shards of glass embedded in the cut on his hand and it took every ounce of his resolve and pride not to scream out loud as he tweezed each painful piece out and wrapped the wound in antiseptic gauze.

His task done, and his wounds tended as best he could manage under the circumstance, he leaned against the sink and closed his eyes. He was so sleepy that he probably could have drifted off right then and there but a loud bang sent him jumping out of his skin.

"What was that?" He called hoarsely to the other detective around the large lump in his throat.

"You may want to come take a look at this," replied Kurt's voice, muffled by the walls between them.

Magnus swallowed hard and took a deep, steading breath, finding his racing heart somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. Now that the adrenaline of the past ten minutes or so had completely worn off he was beginning to feel nervous, shaky even, and he had to force himself to relax. He looked down at his hands, trembling by his sides, and shoved them deep into the pockets of his jacket to keep Kurt from noticing how unsteady he was.

"What," he asked again, reentering the gaudy bedroom across the hall.

Kurt was leaning over a wooden trunk at the end of the bed, his hand resting on the edge of the open lid, a peculiar expression on his face. "It looks as if we may indeed have a problem," he said.

Magnus closed the distance between them and stared in disbelief at the contents in the box. There were wires, watches, a few disposable cells phones, a variety of explosives, blasting caps, and all of the other materials necessary for making a bomb or two or five.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Well, you said you missed something when you were here last, but how did you miss _that_?"

Kurt glared at him and Magnus glared right back. "There was no reason to check this room beyond the cursory sweep."

"Right. Sure."

Kurt puffed himself up and Magnus knew that he had said the wrong thing yet again. His inappropriate sarcasm would be the death of him someday, and today was starting to look quite likely.

"How does this connect with our serial killer theory?" He asked quickly. He wasn't in the mood for another ass chewing. His head simply could not take it.

Kurt deflated faster than a popped balloon. "It doesn't."

"Well, that's helpful."

"I haven't figured it out yet, alright. I'm still trying to find all the pieces to the puzzle."

"Well, this is a pretty big piece. You know what, I've got it. Maybe our serial killer isn't really a serial killer after all, just a guy moonlighting as a vigilante, keeping Sweden safe from pipe bomb makers and the exploits of little children." Magnus could not keep the scoff out of his voice or the irritated expression off his face.

"I said I haven't figured it out yet, Magnus, but I'm working on it! Stop using your mouth and start using your hands! Since you've already destroy any fingerprints and touch DNA that might have been there, see what else you can find on that computer!"

The consequence of Kurt's yelling manifested itself in the renewal of a headache, and Magnus closed his eyes against the onslaught of pain. He should have kept his mouth shut, but it just wasn't in his nature where Wallander was concerned.

Taking another deep, steading breath, he stood up slowly and crossed to the desk. He rifled around in the drawers and found a mobile phone with a dead battery. He pocketed it with the intention to look at it later, thinking that something interesting might show up on the phone records if nothing else.

"Let's go," said Kurt after several minutes of fruitless searching, already heading for the door.

Magnus grabbed the laptop and cast another glance around the room, but he didn't see anything else worth taking with him back to the station. He padded across the hallway and eased down the staircase, one hand clutching the laptop to his chest, the other sliding along the railing in a death grip that betrayed how shaken up he really was over his fall.

When he climbed into Kurt's car, it was nearly full dark, or as close to full dark as it ever got in Sweden during the summertime. The empty land around them was shrouded in a dusky hue that perpetuated eerie shadows along the tree line. A chill ran down Magnus's spine and he felt like someone had doused him in cold water. He wished Kurt would get off the phone and start the car so that they could leave this place and never come back. All he wanted to do was crawl into his nice warm bed and forget that this day had ever happened.

He leaned his head against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes. His eyelids felt too heavy and his mind was beginning to cloud with a strange fog. It only took a moment of relaxation before he was drifting away from the house, but a strong hand on his shoulder shook him violently back to Earth and suddenly Kurt was snapping his fingers in his face.

"Wake up, Magnus! You can't go to sleep. I'll be damned if I let you die in my car, two hours from home and the nearest hospital. Sit up straight and keep your eyes open."

He glowered and tried to ignore the other man, but Wallander would not let him have any peace on the ride back.

As they turned out of the driveway and Kurt pointed the car toward Ystad, he launched into a line of inquiry that left Magnus reeling. "How did that guy get into the house? The doors were locked and there were no signs of forced entry on the backdoor. Did he have a key? Where did he get it? What was he doing there in the first place and why didn't he just take the laptop with him? Why sit around in a crime scene and use it?"

Magnus shrugged his disinterest and gave Kurt his standard, noncommittal reply. "Because he was really devious."

Kurt shot him a glare that could have melted an iceberg. "Not helpful," he growled. "Think, Magnus. Think!"

"I don't know," he said after a moment of thoughtful silence in which he did not actually think about anything other than how sleepy he was.

"Well, there has to be a connection somewhere. Find it."

Magnus groaned. Whenever Kurt said there was a connection, it usually meant that he was going to be wading through a pile of shit for the case breaker that Kurt would later ignore.

"What do we know?" Asked Kurt, "Start with the facts."

He sat up and ran a weary hand over his face. "We know that the Hjalmarsson's were into some pretty extremist shit judging by the bomb factory in their bedroom."

"No," said Kurt, his voice derisive and hard, "that is all conjecture. We do not actually know that they were involved in anything."

"Conjecture?" Countered Magnus, "I'd say it's not that much of a long shot. How else did that stuff get there?"

"Facts, Martinsson. Give me the facts and nothing else."

Magnus inhaled in an attempt to reign in his temper. "The Hjalmarsson's were a middle class family. The father was a carpenter, the mother was a stay-at-home mom, and the son was an honor roll student. They were all gruesomely murdered, most likely by a serial, and their bodies were posed in a way that echoed an older crime committed over thirty years ago. There were explosives and bomb making materials in their house and an uninvited guest using their computer after their deaths. Beyond that, everything is speculation and supposition."

Kurt sighed and was silent for several moments. "Did the father know the Ahström family?"

"I don't know."

"Did he have any ties to the Bäckström family?"

"Who?" Asked Magnus in confusion. This was the first time Kurt had mentioned that particular name and he was terribly afraid he had missed something important.

"The second murdered family. The crime scene I spent all afternoon at. It looks to be the same MO as the others: all dead, all posed."

"Oh. Well, I don't know.

"Was the father a disgruntled employee? Does he have a criminal record? The Ahström's were in the used car business, did he buy a car from them?"

"I don't know," repeated Magnus in irritation. He could feel his headache coming back under the barrage of Kurt's questions and he was starting to get terribly hot.

"Well, what do you know? You spent half the day on the bloody crime database. What where you doing?"

Magnus lost it. "I am not Sherlock Holmes," he bit out, each word pointed and sharp. "I can't just pull the bloody answers out of thin air whenever you ask a question. You had me looking for connections between MO's and serial killers and that is what I was doing. You want other answers? You're going to have to wait for them because I can't conjure them out of my ass."

Kurt appeared stunned at his little outburst but Magnus was beyond reproach. Maybe it was the concussion talking but he was tired, sore, and hungry, and if Kurt wanted to play hard ball and be an ass then Magnus could play that game, too. The other man had always thought him tactless and insensitive, maybe it was time he learned that Magnus had a backbone and didn't appreciate being pushed around because he was the youngest, least experienced guy on the force.

He took a deep breath to calm his rising temper and forged ahead before Kurt could think of a response. He was not about to apologize but he could try to salvage the situation and maybe save his career. "I can tell you that the father was not a political activist. His name was not flagged on any of the databases: the crime database, Interpol, or any of the international terrorist watch lists. The mother was clean, too."

"So maybe the boy had something to do with it."

"What? The boy?" Magnus asked incredulously. "Are you daft? A ten year old making a bomb?"

"Stranger things have happened," mused Kurt.

Magnus shook his head and watched the shadows pass by out the car window. "Maybe he was just making a volcano."

It was Kurt's turn to be incredulous. "A _volcano_?"

"Yeah, I made one when I was ten for the school science fair. I won second place," he added proudly. "Some kid with a butterfly collection won first."

"And what about the websites? The bomb schematics? Why would a kid building a volcano have need of those?"

"Maybe he knew another kid had a butterfly collection and was planning to sabotage it. Bombs trump butterflies."

Even in the darkness, he saw Wallander's face turn red. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel and Magnus knew he had gone a step too far.

"Or maybe he was building a bomb for another purpose. It's not much harder to build a pipe bomb than it is to build a volcano. Or maybe it was the father after all. Maybe he was a disgruntled employee looking for a bit of payback, or maybe he hated his neighbors and wanted to get rid of them. Maybe the mother was teed off at her book club. Who knows why they had bomb materials and schematics in their house. It's not like we can ask them now, can we?"

"Tomorrow," said Kurt evenly, though Magnus could tell it took a great deal of effort, "I want you to crosscheck all three cases: Ahström, Hjalmarsson, and Bäckström. Fine me something that connects them. I don't care how small the connection is or how unimportant you think it is. I want to know everything. I can't solve the puzzle unless I have all of the pieces." He gave Magnus a barbed look that warned him not to open his mouth again. "And find out why they had bomb making material in that house."

Magnus slumped over in his seat and stared out the window. Night had finally fallen in earnest and the horizon was a dusty yellow line in the distance. The long, lonely road back to Ystad was practically deserted and he had not seen another car for several miles. It was going to be a long ride home. The tense silence that permeated the car made him uncomfortable and he wished Kurt would turn on the radio, but he may as well have wished for the moon for all the good it would do him. Kurt did not appear to like music which may have been just as well because he suspected anything Kurt liked would not be something he liked himself.

He reached into his pocket and removed his mobile to find he had two missed text messages. The first one was from his mother inquiring after his whereabouts and he realized he had missed her birthday dinner. He hadn't even called to tell her he loved her or wish her happy birthday and he had completely forgotten to pick up her present. He resolved to send her a bouquet of flowers and call her first thing in the morning and apologize. His mother had a soft heart and would quickly forgive him, especially when she saw his injuries, but his father never would. It was just another opportunity for the man to yell at him and make him feel about two inches tall. His mother, for her part, would try to talk him into quitting his job in favor of something safer. If it were up to her, Magnus would be sitting behind a desk pushing paper.

_Oh, wait, _he thought ruefully, _I already do that. It's just that sometimes Kurt and Lisa let me out into the world to get shot at and make myself look incompetent._

He sighed out loud and clicked through to the next text message. It was from his girlfriend, or judging by the vehemence and all capitals letters, his now ex-girlfriend. He hit the delete button with a frown, finding the prospect of being a single man again slightly depressing. It appeared that no one approved of his chosen profession.

Just then, his mobile vibrated in his hand indicating that he had an incoming text. Having isolated all of his family and driven away another girlfriend because of his job as a policeman, Magnus had no idea who would have been texting him at this time of night.

The number was blocked and he felt something cold twist in his stomach, but his curiosity was stronger than his unease. He opened the message and was surprise to find it only contained a single word: _Soon_.

Confused, he tried to find a callback number but it was blocked, too. His puckered brow deepened and he pressed his lips into a thin, hard line. The shard of ice in his stomach twisted sharply and the sense of foreboding that had been plaguing him for miles finally reared its ugly head. He wondered if he should share this with Kurt but the other man was staring straight ahead, driving far too fast, eyes distant, and knuckles white with anger on the steering wheel.

He turned his attention back to the phone, his eyes catching the movement out the window in his peripheral vision, but by the time he opened his mouth to shout a warning, it was far too late.

Kurt slammed on the brakes as the deer shot into the road in front of them. The tires squealed and Magnus was flung forward and then backwards, the safety belt the only thing keeping him from crashing through the windshield and eating the pavement. He felt the impact rattle his body all the way down to his toes. The airbag deployed and smacked him full in the face, causing him to inhale a lungful of airbag dust. He coughed and gasped for breath as the car skidded to a halt on the side of the road.

"Kurt?" He gasped between coughing fits. "Kurt?"

The other man did not respond. Magnus reached for the seat belt release and tumbled out of the car. He landed painfully on his knees, panting and grabbing at his chest where the seatbelt had left a long red kiss down his chest.

"Kurt!"

Somehow he found his feet and stumbled to the driver's side. Kurt was laid out across the steering wheel, unconscious, but alive and bleeding from a cut on his face. Yanking the door open, he tried to release Kurt's seatbelt but it was stuck. He pulled at it, frantically trying to free the other detective as the smell of petrol filled the air around them. Cursing, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his pocket knife to cut the belt loose. He managed to cut his finger in his haste, but he ignored the stinging as he hauled Kurt to safety on the other side of the road where he collapsed in the ditch under the other man's weight and the strain of his own fatigue. He checked his pulse again, just to reassure himself that Kurt wasn't dead, and he was relieved to find it strong and steady. He reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve his mobile phone, thinking to call for help, but he remembered that he had been using it when the crash happened and he must have dropped it somewhere in the car.

He cursed again, a colorful string of profanities that would have made his mother faint, and trudged back across the road. He rummaged around in the seat and floorboard for the phone but came up empty handed. He reached between the seat and the center console and hit pay dirt. Unfortunately, the screen was completely shattered, rendering it impossible to use.

"Fantastic," he grumbled, "bloody fantastic."

He reached back into the car and collected his laptop and the laptop he had taken from the Hjalmarsson's house. They looked to be mostly intact and Magnus was grateful.

"Kurt," he shouted, hoping that the other man had awakened, but he still received no answer. He peered through what was left of the window, but Kurt was too far down the ditch to see from the road.

Magnus was about to stand up when he spotted the pair of headlights screaming toward him. His first instinct was to jump up and stop the car, but alarm bells sounded in his head and he remained crouched half in, half out of the passenger's side of Kurt's car.

The other car did not slow down and he could have sworn it accelerated as it got closer. He watched in mute horror as someone leaned out of the driver's side window, arm extended, and tossed a lighter toward the petrol tank of Kurt's car.

Magnus threw himself backwards and rolled painfully down the short incline into the ditch. He curled up into a tight ball and covered his head with his hands as the explosion rocked his body. He felt the heat on his face and hands and the acrid smell of smoke nearly caused him to heave. He coughed as the other car disappeared into the darkness, tires squealing on the pavement.

Kurt's BMW was a flaming heap of metal by the time Magnus crawled out of the ditch and back to the other man's side. He reached into Kurt's jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile. There was one signal bar in the upper left hand corner and the battery was almost dead.

Magnus punched in Anne-Brit's number and waited breathlessly for the call to go through.

"Hoglund."

"Anne-Brit! It's Magnus. I need your help."

"Hello? I can barely hear you. There so much static on the line. Kurt is that you?"

"No, it's Magnus!" He shouted into the receiver. "There's been a car accident. Send help. We're just outside of Kivik! Hello? Anne-Britt? Hello!"

Magnus shook the phone and banged it against his palm but the call had ended and the battery was dead. He tossed it into the dirt in fury and disgust. He felt hot, angry tears prickle behind his eyes but he blinked them away. He hunched over, bringing his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them.

He didn't know if Anne-Britt had understood what he was trying to tell her. If she didn't, if the call ended before he told her where they were, or if the interference was too much for her to understand, they could be stuck by the side of the road for a very long time waiting for help to arrive.

Exhausted and aching, he collapsed backwards on the dirt. The overwhelming sensation of helplessness crashed over him. He had fallen into something that he was wholly unprepared for and, for the first time, he felt like he was in so far over his head that he could no longer tell which way was up. He closed his eyes and willed it all away, willed it all to be a terrible nightmare, but when he opened his eyes nothing had changed.

He banged his uninjured fist into the dirt in frustration. It was hopeless. He did not know how the serial killer connected with the bombs, or if there was even a connection there at all. He did not know who had just tried to kill them, or how they knew they would be here in the first place. The deer had been a coincidence, an accident that could not have been predicted or prevented.

The more he thought about the case, the less sense it made. He tried to look at it the way Kurt would, to see it from all possible angles, all the possible connections as tiny threads that led somewhere, but he could not make his brain paint a coherent picture. Everything was muddled together, all the threads knotted into a heap, and the harder he tried to untangle the knot, the tighter it got and more his head ached.

He rubbed furiously at his eyes with hands, trying vainly to stop the pounding, but it was no use. He huffed at the stars above, dancing merrily in the heavens, oblivious to the plight of the two men on the side of the road beneath them.

The longer he lay there the more he began to feel a strange disconnection from the world around him. Minutes felt like hours and Magnus did not know how long he had been lost in his thoughts. The adrenaline from the crash and the fiery aftermath had completely worn off, leaving him slightly numb. He began to relax despite himself and he could feel sleep creep up on him like a thief in the night and steal away the last vestiges of his resolve. His eyelids were heavy, weighted like lead, and, no matter how hard he tried, he could not keep them open.

He fell asleep in the dirt, shivering in the tepid night air, completely unaware of the car creeping down the road toward them.

* * *

I am SO sorry for not updating this story sooner. I have been agonizing over this chapter for a month and I am still not entirely happy with it. I swear the next update will not take so long.

Please don't forget to leave a review.


	3. Chapter 3: The Heart of Darkness

**Author's Notes**: I apologize for the massive delay between chapters.

**Warnings**: Mentions of child abuse/death.

* * *

_The grey pall of the sky loomed low and heavy overhead, occasionally spewing forth the odd assortment of snowflakes, and casting long, arching shadows over the ground._

_He ran around and around, faster and faster, his snow boots slapping noisily on the hard, frozen ground, his breath a foggy mist on the cold, wintery air. His hands were frozen inside his gloves and his nose had long since lost any feeling, but he kept running, the cold steel of the handles beneath his hands anchoring him to the here and now. The sound of sweet, giggling laughter floating on the air and impelled him forward._

"_Faster, Magnus! Faster!"_

_Magnus gritted his teeth and forced his feet to do as commanded, but the roundabout was soon moving too swiftly for his legs to keep up and he was holding on for dear life, his feet dragging across the pavement and scuffing up his new boots. He pulled himself up onto the platform of the merry-go-round using the last bit of strength he had left in his tired arms. The dizzying sensation was liberating and he felt himself laughing manically along with his friend as they sailed around and around and around, the world a white blur as it sped by. _

_As the roundabout began to slow, Magnus flopped backward to lie on his back, watching Brita out of the corner of his eye._

"_Again, Magnus! Again!" She laughed breathlessly, smiling more brightly than the midday sun on a perfect warm summer's day._

_Magnus smiled to himself, pleased that Brita was happy and smiling again. He hated to see her so sad._

"_I'm tired," he complained in mock horror at the prospect of pushing the roundabout again. "My arms are going to fall off! Look!" He flopped his arms around loosely and Brita giggled into her mittens. _

"_You would look funny with no arms."_

_Magnus frowned, trying to imagine just what he would look like with no arms. He imagined one of Brita's Barbie dolls with its arms ripped off, and he could barely stifle the inappropriate giggle crawling up his throat._

"_It's your turn to push me," he said._

"_No," replied Brita. "You're supposed to push me all the time."_

_Magnus rolled his eyes and rolled over, falling off the edge of the platform with ceremony. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he grasped the handles of the roundabout and launched it forward. Brita began to squeal with delight, her head thrown back, and her eyes closed. Her beautiful golden blond curls peeked out from beneath the bright red knit hat she wore, and Magnus felt a jolt of some unfathomable emotion that both confused and excited him._

_They had been at the playground for hours, swinging on the swings and spinning on the roundabout. Snow had begun to fall again and the darkness was encroaching on their happiness like a thief in the night. It was only midafternoon, but the long, cold days of winter waited for no one. Like a waiting shadow, darkness crept across the playground and spread out into the rest of the world._

"_We should go home," Magnus said after the roundabout squeaked to a halt again._

_Brita's face seemed to lose some of its shine and her smile faltered. "I don't ever want to go home," she whispered. "I want to stay here with you forever."_

_Magnus scooted closer to her on the platform, wrapping his arm around her small shoulders. They were the same age – Magnus would turn twelve only two months before her – but he was nearly twice her size._

_She shivered beneath his arm and Magnus could not be sure if it was a reaction against the cold or the rising fear of returning to a house that would never be a home. Brita's mother had died when she was five, a tragic accident that had shocked their small neighborhood, and her father had never been the same. He became silent and brooding and, though none ever spoke of it, he had become violent. Magnus did not like him but there was nothing he could do. He was too small. Too young._

"_Don't worry," he whispered softly into Brita's ear. "I will take care of you. Someday, I'll take you far away from here. Far, far away."_

_Brita turned her gaze upward, her light blue eyes, bright cornflower stars, staring deep into his. She looked at him with such faith and trust that he felt as if the entire world rested on her next question and his answer to it. "Promise?"_

_Magnus smiled again. "Promise," he said, meaning it with his whole heart. _

_Brita looked relieved and she started to giggle again. "One more time?"_

"_Oh, okay," he said in mock exasperation. "Just once more though." Truthfully, he would have pushed her around on the merry-go-round a thousand more times if it made her happy._

_Ten minutes later, they were trudging through ankle deep snow, rubbing their noses with their mittens to encourage a bit of life back into them._

"_Magnus?" Said Brita quietly. "Can I ask you a question?"_

"_Sure," said Magnus, nodding. "Ask me anything."_

"_Do you believe in angels?"_

_The furrow between Magnus's eyebrows deepened. "Angels?" It was the last thing he had expexted._

"_Yes. Angels."_

_He shrugged. "I guess so. I mean, I've never really thought about it. I don't guess I do."_

_He glanced sideways, staring at her from underneath downturned lashes. She was wearing a bright red parka and a matching knit hat. Her small hands, covered in tiny black mittens, where thrust deep into her pockets, and the toe of her snow boots scuffed along the sidewalk with every step she took. She was dragging her feet, delaying her return home for as long as possible, and Magnus felt a quiver spark like lightening down his spine._

"_Why do you ask," he said when she did not respond._

_Brita did not look at him. She was gazing off into the distance, her bright blue eyes dulled by some emotion that he could not read._

"_I believe in angels," she said at last, taking her time with each word as if turning it over in her mind to be sure it was the right word before speaking it aloud. "I think you're an angel, Magnus. Yes, you have to be."_

_Magnus felt a bubble of laughter snake up his throat but it died on his tongue when he saw the expression on Brita's face. She was serious, dead serious, and it unnerved him. He tried on a smile but it felt wrong and he opted for a light but serious face instead._

"_What are you on about?"_

"_I – I don't know how to describe it," she said. "But you've always been my very best friend. You've always been there for me, someone I could trust when I couldn't trust anyone else. You've always stuck up to the bullies and made them leave me alone, and you've always picked me up when I fell down. And," she hesitated. "And you've always looked after me when, well, when things got bad. If you're not an angel, Magnus, then they don't exist."_

_Her words hung heavy in the air between them, suffocating and uncomfortable. Magnus did not know how to respond so he kept his mouth shut. For her part, Brita seemed content to walk in silence now that she had said out loud what was written on her heart. As they rounded the corner and walked the short distance to her front door, Magnus felt a deep, unsettling sense of impending doom wash over him, nearly knocking him over._

"_Brita," he said urgently, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the front steps. He thought of all the things he wanted to say, but he didn't know how to put them into words. He stood there, clinging to her tiny, fragile hand, his mouth working silently and his heart hammering away in his chest. "You're my best friend, too," he said at long last. His cheeks flamed red and he let her hand drop._

_She smiled at him, the smile that he loved so much, and she threw her arms around his neck in a tight embrace._

"_Thank you for being my friend, Magnus," she whispered into his ear, kissing him on the cheek._

_Magnus felt awkward from the top of his knit hat to the bottom of his snow boots, but he closed his arms around her waist and hugged her back._

_When they broke apart, he watched her bound up the steps. She stopped at the top and turned around to wave at him. He raised his hand and waved back until the door closed behind her and he was standing on the empty street, staring at the door and wishing he had told her that, while he might not believe in angels, he believed in her._

_With a heavy heart, he turned and walked away from her house. His feet lead the way and Magnus found himself back at the playground. He sat down heavily on the roundabout and turned it slowly with the tip of his shoes. It creaked eerily in the cold, empty park. _

_A sliver of icy dread had wrapped itself around his heart, but he could not put his finger on what was bothering him. He knew he should go home, his mother was probably sick with worry wondering where he was, but he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Terribly wrong._

_Brita's father had been angry when she returned home, he had seen it through the window. He had given Magnus a scathing look that had made him tremble before savagely snatching the curtains closed. _

_The roundabout stopped and Magnus tapped the toe of his shoe on the pavement, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening once more. He didn't know how long he had sat there, but night had long since fallen when he finally resolved to go back to Brita's house before going home, just to make sure that she was alright, and to stop the senseless feeling of trepidation that had seized his heart like a vice grip._

_He pushed away from the roundabout and started to jog through the playground. Turning right, he heard the sirens before he saw the flashing lights. _

_The shrill sound of the police sirens rent the air and tore at the sinews of his heart as he broke into a run. The ball of dread in his stomach had turned into a seething mass of near crippling fear. He flew through the empty streets, his heart pounding in his throat. He turned the corner onto Brita's street, panting and gasping for breath, and nearly crumpled to the ground when he saw the small army of police cars and ambulances parked outside of her house. _

_He edged as close as he dared to the yellow police tape and watched in horror Brita's father was escorted down the front steps by two uniformed police officers and placed into the backseat of a police cruiser, his face a mask of stone. Time seemed to slow down as he turned his gaze back to the open doorway, and the world slowed to a halt, his heart breaking in his chest, as he watched the paramedics wheel a stretcher out of the house with a small, black body bag strapped to it._

_Brita._

_Magnus stood rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging open in shock. His eyes were glued to the stretcher until it was placed in the back of the ambulance and the closed door barred it from his sight. _

_He swallowed hard against the rising bile in his stomach. He glanced at the police car to find Brita's father staring at him. Their eyes met, only for a moment, but in that instance Magnus knew exactly what had happened. He may have only been eleven years old, but he knew evil when he saw it. Looking into Mr. Eklund's eyes, Magnus saw the devil staring back at him. He had never wanted to hurt anyone before, not the way he wanted to hurt Brita's father. He felt a surge of hatred so strong that it shook him to the very core. His hands balled into tight fists at his sides and he realized that he was shaking._

_He glanced away, unable to look at Brita's father any longer. His stomach betrayed him and he turned around, heaving violently into the brown, dry skeletons of the rosebushes. Tears, hot and shameful, welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. He saw Brita, smiling and laughing, flying around and around on the merry-go-round. He saw her standing on the top step waving at him._

'_I'll take you away from here', he had said. 'I'll keep you safe.'_

_He had promised to protect her, and she had trusted him, but he had failed her. He should have told his mother about the bruises, about the way Mr. Eklund was always so angry with her, but she had sworn him to secrecy, fearing her father's wrath if anyone ever found out. People talked, but no one really knew. Except for him._

_This was his fault._

_Tears flowed down his face like water from a broken dam and he began to run. He didn't know where he was going but he had to get away from that house, away from the stony stare of Mr. Eklund, away from Brita's broken and lifeless body. _

_He ran and ran and ran but he couldn't outrun her trusting face. It was seared into his consciousness as if it had been branded there with a hot iron. His chest burned and his sides ache but he continued to run._

_He tripped over something, ripped his jeans as he skidded across the sidewalk, hard gravel biting into the sensitive flesh of his palms, but he hauled himself back to his feet and kept running. He ran through the park, his feet taking him instinctively to the roundabout. He flung himself across the platform, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the handle, and he cried._

_He cried for Brita, sweet, innocent, beautiful Brita, and for the loss of childhood innocence. _

_A terrifying howl of rage and sadness and guilt was torn from his chest and he pounded his fists onto the hard metal. Over and over and over._

_Magnus lifted his face toward the heavens, his chest heaving and his vision blurred with tears._

_Brita's words echoed dully in his head. 'You're an angel, Magnus. Yes, you have to be.'_

_He tore his gaze away from the dark sky and hung his head in his hands._

_Brita had been wrong. _

_There were no such things as angels._

As his senses slowly returned from the sluggish haze of a drug induced sleep, Magnus shuddered. His eyelids felt heavy and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

The memory of Brita washed over him with appalling force and he gulped back tears, his throat parched and sore, as he tried vainly to shake the cobwebs and the unwelcome image of her bright smiling face from his mind. It had been years since he had dreamed about her, years since he had even given a thought to the reasons he had become a police officer in the first place. He did not like to dwell on such a dark chapter in his life, no matter the ramifications that it had on the here and now. The memory of Brita inevitably led him down dark paths that he would rather not travel.

He shook his head again, more violently this time, determined to shake the memory back into a darkened corner where it could sit and collect dust once more instead of dredging up old heartache and sadness.

Shivering from more than just the memory, Magnus took a moment to assess his situation and observe his new environment.

He was lying in a crumpled heap in the corner of a strange room. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his hands bound behind his back, and a loose gag covered his mouth, preventing him from calling out. His ribs ached from the fall he had taken earlier that night. Had it only been hours ago? It felt like ages had passed since then. Closing his eyes, he took a deep, steading breath.

When he opened his eyes again, he glanced around him, searching for a clue as to where he was.

The room was small and long with a low ceiling and a single, solitary window set high in the stone wall facing west. The shaft of dusty light pouring through the window was dull but it made his eyes water painfully when he looked at it. There was no furniture in the room, only a row of long, low shelves bolted to the wall opposite him, directly under the window. There was another row of shelves immediately to his right, obstructing his view of the rest of the room. In front of him, about eight feet away, there was a wooden staircase leading up into the darkness. He was sitting behind it, or underneath it, he wasn't sure which perspective was accurate. To his left was a stone wall. The cold flagstone floors and damp walls hinted that it might be a basement or a cellar of some kind that had fallen into disuse.

His eyes searched the dim room for another sign of life, perhaps for the prone body of Wallander, but he was completely alone. He shifted uncomfortably. His back ached from lying hunched half over on his side, and his hands were numb from the lack of circulation.

He drew his knee up to his chest and pushed himself into a seated position. His hands, handcuffed to a pipe behind him, prickled numbly as blood rushed back into his fingers.

Magnus tried to slip his hands out of their bindings but the handcuffs were far too tight to do more than dig painfully into his wrists. He huffed in frustration through the gag.

It was hopeless. As a police officer, he knew it, but the irrational part of his mind, the part that was screaming at him that he had to escape, refused to believe it.

He tried again, desperate to free himself.

The handcuffs clinked sharply in the hollow gloom and Magnus waited with bated breath for the sound of approaching footsteps, sure that someone had heard the noise and would come to investigate its source. Several moments passed in strained silence, Magnus listening for the slightest sound but unable to hear anything over the roaring in his ears.

Finally, he resumed pulling at the shackles, trying to work them off his wrists. Every nerve in his body vibrated with tension like a violin string tuned too tautly and he quivered from a mix of exertion and nervous energy. His body betraying the fear he felt with shaking limbs. Sweat beaded along his forehead and dripped into his eyes. His wrists began to ache as the metal of the handcuffs rubbed them raw.

He gnashed his teeth in frustration, grunting into the gag as he pulled with all of his strength.

Nothing.

He had thought he was alone in the room until an eerie laugh echoed off the stones. He froze. His heart leaped into his throat where it stuck, painfully clogging his airway.

"Tsk tsk. Manners, Magnus. Where are your manners? When someone goes through the trouble to make you comfortable, you should not thank them by trying to escape."

A man stepped out of the darkness, around the shelving unit blocking his view to the right, and paced slowly toward him. His gait was predatory and Magnus suddenly felt like an antelope caught in a bush. Or maybe a fly caught in a web. This man was tall, lanky, all limbs. To say he reminded Magnus of a spider was an understatement.

"Who are you," he mumbled around the gag as the man stalked toward him.

As he passed through a weak ray of light, Magnus felt his stomach turn at the sight of his face. It was so familiar that Magnus was sure he was watching a ghost crawl its way out of hell and sidle up in front of him into a menacing crouch.

His mouth went bone dry and his heart hammered against his chest, harder and harder until he was sure it would burst free.

"I am the one who holds your life in his hands," said the man, his lips curling into a fiendish smile. "I am judge, jury, and executioner. I am Ulf."

He said his name as if he expected Magnus to recognize it, but he didn't. He racked his brain until something clicked into place with dawning horror.

This man was no ghost but his brother was and by Magnus's hand. A thorn of information, small and infinitesimal, gathered in haste and discarded just as quickly, prickled in the back of his mind. Ake, the madman Magnus had killed to save Linda and Kurt, had a half-brother named Ulf. Magnus had filed the seemingly small and insignificant piece of information away in the recesses of his mind and forgotten about it after the shooting death of Ake. He never thought, not even for a moment, that anyone in their right mind would seek him out and take revenge for someone as pathetic and psychotic as Ake.

But that was the problem, Ulf, like his half-brother, was not in his right mind. They were both clearly several crayons short of a full box, and psychosis obviously ran in their family. It was a disturbing thought and one that had Magnus fearing for his life.

Ulf, Ake's fiendish doppelganger, reached out and removed the gag from Magnus's mouth and Magnus licked his lips nervously, repulsed as the man's fingers brushed against his cheek. Panic gripped his heart and her struggled for something to say to break the tense silence. He tried to regulate his breathing, unsuccessfully tried to clamp down on the clawing terror in chest.

"Where's Wallander?" He finally managed to choke out. "What have you done with him?"

Ulf leered at him and a shiver stole down Magnus's spine. "Don't worry about your friend. Wallander won't be a problem anymore."

Magnus's heart squeezed painfully, skipping a beat, at the insinuation in the other man's words. Something hard twisted in his stomach and he had to work to control his tongue before it got him into trouble. This was neither the time nor the place to be sarcastic. He knew he was staring death in the face and he knew he had to buy himself some time to think his way out of this situation.

"What do you want from me," he asked, hating the way his voice shook like a school boy facing a bully he knew he could never defeat.

Ulf made a sound that could have been mistaken for a laugh but to Magnus it sounded like a dam breaking. "I want justice. You deserve to be punished for what you did to my brother, but the government seems to think you are a hero." said Ulf bitterly, spittle flying all over Magnus's face. "But you're not a hero. You murdered my brother and you're going to pay for it. If they won't do anything about it, I will."

"Your brother killed a lot of people, innocent people, and he would have killed more if I hadn't stopped him," said Magnus, his anger getting the better of his fear and his tongue.

"Innocent is a relative term," said Ulf, his hands curling into tight fists at his sides. "No one is ever truly innocent. Even you with all of your good intentions." Ulf scoffed suddenly. "You live such a straightforward, dull life. Everything you do revolves around your job. You think you are any different from the people you put behind bars? How many families have you destroyed with all of your good intentions? How many men have you taken away from their families? How many children have you left fatherless? You might be a policeman, but you are no better than anyone else. The only difference is that your actions are sanctioned by the government, but murder is murder. Isn't it?" Ulf paused to stare Magnus down, his face hardening, his eyes blazing. "It is. You have the nightmares to prove it. The endless hours of sitting in the darkness, just waiting for the dawn to break. Does it ever break, Magnus?"

"It was you," said Magnus breathlessly. Horror seized his lungs, and he almost stopped breathing altogether.

Magnus's mind was working overtime as he burned through the memories of the last several weeks. The time since the death of Ake had been filled with breathy phone calls in the middle of the night, untraceable text messages, missing pieces of mail, flat tires on his car, and the strangest sensations of being followed. He had suspected he was being pursued, stalked even, but he had not known for certain.

He had not wanted to know.

If he allowed himself to believe someone was following him, wishing him harm, then he would have to accept the fact that he had killed a man. The truth of that, no matter how difficult to swallow or how glaringly obvious it was, still did not register for Magnus. The sleepless nights and nightmarish dreams that haunted him in the darkness were proof enough that he had taken another man's life, but Magnus had a hard time facing it during the light of day. It was much easier to ignore when he was busy with work and surrounded by people than it was when he was alone in his apartment with nothing but the television to keep him company.

The final text message he had received before his phone shattered, before the car accident with Wallander, flashed across his mind: _Soon_. Ice flooded his veins and Magnus felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath him.

Ulf had been watching his every move, following his every step like a waiting shadow, biding his time until the perfect moment to strike. The unexpected collision with the deer had proved to be the fateful moment when Magnus was forced to face his demons.

Ready or not, this was the moment of truth, the one he had been running from. He could no longer pretend that the death of Ake was a nightmare. It was real and it was staring him in the face.

He tried to think of something else to say, but he could tell by the look on Ulf's face that the other man was finished talking.

_Right down to business then_.

Ulf's fist collided painfully with Magnus's cracked ribs and he doubled over as blinding pain took his breath away. For a moment he couldn't inhale or exhale, he was stuck in limbo, somewhere between sucking in a lungful of necessary oxygen and exhaling a breath of swear words that would have made his mother blush. When the tears cleared from his field of vision and the sharp knifing pain began to subside to a full ache, he choose the latter.

"You son of a bitch," he spat between gritted teeth. "You bloody motherfucker!"

Ulf grinned at him. It was a twisted, narcissistic smirk that made Magnus's skin crawl in anticipation of more pain.

"You'll never get away with this," he said, trying his best to screw his face into something other than a painful mask of fear. He wanted Ulf to believe that he was confident in his rescue, or his own vengeance, but he was afraid that he was failing miserably.

Ulf's grin widened to reveal a mouthful of teeth, gleaming ominously in the semi light of the basement.

"No one is coming for you, Magnus Martinsson, because no one knows where you are. Your false bravado is as pathetic as it is fake." He leaned in close, until he was mere inches away from Magnus's face. Magnus could feel his breath on his face, hot and stale and reeking of garlic. "You are all alone," Ulf said his voice a sing song-y whisper. "All alone."

Panic was beginning to seep into Magnus's sluggish brain. His calm control was slipping away with every second that ticked by. He tried to breathe normally but every breath was an exercise in pain management.

"What do you want with me," he managed at last.

The other man laughed and the sound sent shivers of ice twisting down Magnus's spine. He shivered involuntarily.

"What do I want," repeated Ulf incredulously. "What do _I_ want?"

His hand shot out and he grabbed Magnus by the back of his head, his hand twisting painfully in his hair as he jerked Magnus's head backward, baring his throat to him and putting undue pressure on the fragile vertebrae of his neck.

Dark spots danced in his vision but Magnus blinked then away.

"I want you to suffer," said Ulf angrily. "I want you to suffer for what you did to my brother. You shot him dead like an animal. An animal! And you carried on with your life as if nothing had happened, as if you had not killed a man in cold blood. They hailed you as a hero, but you are nothing but a murderer."

"Your brother was a murderer," said Magnus, unable to keep his mouth shut even in the face if certain death. "He was the cold blooded killer, not me. I did what I had to do to save innocent lives."

"Does that help you sleep at night," asked Ulf. "Is that the lie you tell yourself to make it through the day? That you are different from my brother because you saved people?" He jerked on Magnus's hair and Magnus winced, a soft, strangled noise issuing from his partially blocked airway.

"The only difference between you and my brother, between you and me, is that your actions were lauded by the government as acceptable and you were paid for 'doing your job.'" He ran the tip of a very sharp knife across the exposed skin of Magnus's neck, baring down just hard enough to draw small beads of blood to the surface - a thin red necklace and the hint of things to come. Magnus did not dare swallow for fear of slitting his own throat.

"I will not get paid in kronor, Mr. Martinsson, but rest assured your death, as slow and painful as it will be, shall be payment enough for your sins." He curled his mouth into a frightening snarl and placed the tip of the blade against Magnus's cheek. "I am going to enjoy watching the light leave your eyes." he whispered the words in Magnus's ear as if whispering sweet nothing's to a lover. His words were punctuated by the tip of the knife digging into the sensitive flesh of Magnus's cheek as it was drawn downward from his cheekbone to his jaw, leaving a raw, bloody gash in its wake.

Ulf released him then, snatching his hand away and ripping out a handful of his hair. Magnus hissed, but bit his lip to remain silent.

"Sweet dreams, love," cooed Ulf from somewhere far above him.

Magnus waited for the inevitable blow of pain, braced for something hard and heavy to slam into his head, or for a boot to jam into his ribs, but the soft sound of echoing footfalls retreating alerted him to Ulf's departure. A heavy door, squeaking on protesting hinges, opened in the distance and slammed shut. A key turned in a lock and he was alone with his pain once more.

He pulled desperately at the chains binding his wrists behind his back until the skin was rubbed raw and bleeding again from effort. He knew that Ulf would return, sooner rather than later, and he knew that if he did not escape now he never would.

This was his once chance to save himself, his one window of opportunity to prove to himself that he was every bit the detective he had trained to be. If he could not save himself from the clutches of a deranged madman, how could he expect to save anyone else?

He closed his eyes, screwed them up tight against the pain, and concentrated on slipping his wrist through the impossibly tight steel of the handcuff. He felt the skin scratch and tear as the metal bit into it, but he gritted his teeth and pulled harder, determined to free himself no matter the cost. His wounds would heal in time, but no amount of ointment or stitches could ever heal a dagger through the heart or a bullet through the head.

Finally, when he was ready to give up, he wrenched his left hand free with a violent yank that nearly tore his hand from his wrist. His arms ached from being forced into such an unnatural position for such an extended period of time, and his wrists mangled beyond recognition. He climbed to his feet, uncertain and shaking. The cuffs dangled from his right hand and he grasped the empty one to keep it from clinking against anything.

Slowly and soundlessly, he crept across the room, coming to a halt in front of the high window. There was nothing for him to stand on except for the rotten shelves and he knew without testing them that they would never support his weight. His eyes scanned the darkness, searching for something, anything, he could use as a ladder or step stool. There, in the back corner, behind the furnace, was a rickety old barrel.

Magnus rolled it quickly across the filthy floor, resisting the urge to cough as years' worth of dust caught in his throat and tickled the sensitive membranes. Looking over his shoulder, he peered up the staircase and waited for the slightest sound signaling Ulf's return.

Nothing.

He breathed a sigh of relief and positioned the barrel under the window. It was a terrible idea, but it was the only idea he had. He knew that Ulf would come for him soon, death hot on his heels, and he knew that his bruised and battered body could not take any more abuse.

Taking another deep breath, this one to steady his nerves, he placed one foot on the wobbly barrel. Using the shelving unit as a means to claw his way toward the window, he brought up his other foot, his full weight bearing down on the barrel. It groaned under the strain of supporting him but it did not break.

He was even with the window and dismayed to find that it was locked. He couldn't break it because Ulf would hear the noise and be on him before he could haul himself through the shards of glass and out the other side.

The locking mechanism was rusty from years of disuse and Magnus could not turn it. He leaned on it with all of his weight, grunting with effort as he tried desperately to loosen decade's worth of rust. Finally, the lock shifted and he was able to manhandle it loose. With shaking hands, he opened the window as slowly as possible. The hinges squeaked in protest and Magnus swallowed hard against the rising fear of discovery.

A blast of fresh, welcome air hit him full in the face as he propped the window open with a board he had found in search of the barrel.

The blood in his veins turned to ice as he heard the click of the lock upstairs and the sound of the dead bolt being pulled back. His pulse quickened and his movements became frantic, sloppy. With all of his strength, he hauled himself up and into the open window. A nail snagged his jeans and tore the skin of his thigh but he pushed himself forward, his hands clawing at the wet earth of the ground outside the window.

The sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears as he pulled his legs free of the window and climbed to his feet. A cool breeze sliced through his thin summer jacket, chilling him to the core.

About ten yards from the house in any direction was a dense, dark forest. With nowhere else to go, he ran toward the tree line in full protest of his aching body, desperation clinging to every pore of his body in the form of a cold sweat, impelling him onward.

Behind him, a feral howl of rage chased him deep into the heart of darkness.


End file.
